U.S. Pat. No. 3,982,415, which is assigned to the assignee of the present application, discloses a rolling operation for forming splines in thin-wall sleeves of power transmission members. This rolling operation is performed by mounting the thin-wall sleeve on a toothed mandrel that is located between a pair of toothed dies. Movement of the pair of dies in opposite directions as each other meshes the die and mandrel teeth with the sleeve therebetween so as to form the splines at diametrically opposite locations while the mandrel rotates in coordination with the die movement. Vehicle automatic transmissions conventionally incorporate the type of splined sleeve formed by this rolling process which is capable of performing the splining much more economically than impact splining that was previously utilized. One embodiment of the toothed mandrel disclosed by this patent is radially expandable so as to facilitate mounting and removal of the sleeve for the splining.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,028,922, which is also assigned to the assignee of the present application, discloses dies having a particular toothed forming face construction for performing the thin-wall sleeve splining discussed above. These dies are disclosed as being either of the straight gear rack type or of a rotary type such as disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,045,988 which is also assigned to the assignee of the present application.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,237, which is also assigned to the assignee of the present application, discloses a thin-wall sleeve splining machine of the type discussed above with an automatic loader used to mount and remove the sleeve from the mandrel. Loading and unloading members of the machine loader cooperate to move the sleeve onto the mandrel for the splining operation and to thereafter remove the splined sleeve in preparation for the next cycle.